QUANTUM COHERENCE OF OPTICAL SOLITONS IN FIBERS

Coherence properties of quantum optical solitons in the normalized fun damental soliton states are discussed in terms of the integrated two-p oint field and intensity autocorrelation functions, which are the rele vant quantities in the quantum description of soliton interference exp eriments and in the Hanbury-Brown and Twiss experiment, respectively. Both the spatial and the temporal correlation properties are considere d. The correlation functions are shown to be stationary in general, wh ich demonstrates the solitary behavior of quantum fundamental solitons and indicates their stability in propagation. Explicit evaluation of the correlation functions in some limit cases enables us to make compa risons between the classical and the quantum-mechanical results. Condi tions leading to the classical limit are derived and the intrinsic qua ntum phenomena are identified. Of great importance is the contribution of the momentum superposition, which can make the quantum results dif fer significantly from the corresponding classical ones.